Black Holes for Everyone

Malcolm J Perry
University of Cambridge, UK

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The idea of gravitational collapse to form a black hole was not taken seriously until the pioneering work of, amongst others, Oppenheimer, Wheeler, Penrose and Hawking. I will present the basic properties of black holes as they have emerged from classical general relativity together with some of the puzzles that come along with this description. I will then briefly look at black hole astrophysics as a way of convincing one that black holes really do exist and play a vital role in our understanding of the universe. Finally, I will examine the issues of including quantum mechanics into black hole physics and how this leads to the information paradox, a problem that has stressed physicists for the last fifty years.

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Wednesday 19 Nov @ 4pm 
Physics West, W117 

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